Arch
by shikamaru's fangirlxxx
Summary: AU. Where John is a first year medical student and finds himself fascinated by the dark haired young man sitting beneath the railway bridge.
1. First

Written for my twin, because its our birthday tomorrow. I hope you enjoy, most of the chapters are written now, just waiting to be proofread.

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><p>1.<p>

Two figures were stood together giggling with adrenaline, the sound echoing around them. The vibrations bounced off the bricks which arched over their heads, supporting the railway bridge above. The slightly taller of the two quietened, grinning upwards at the ceiling.

"Isn't it brilliant?"

"What?" The girl asked, the adrenaline of having run all the way there beginning to ebb as she looked around her.

"This place, it's so…" The young man struggles to find the right words to describe the space, the height, the feeling of the towering archway surrounding them.

"It's just a bridge John…" The woman tugs at the sleeve of his jacket, taking his hand in an attempt to regain his attention.

He smiled, squeezing her hand in return and bent down to kiss her, wrapping his jacket around her as her hands snake around him, her slim fingers lacing into the fabric of the t-shirt he was wearing.

The moment of perfect seclusion was broken as a voice cut from the other side of the archway.

"What are you doing?"

The couple broke apart hurriedly, turning to look, first in surprise but in due course annoyance, towards the speaker. The angular, dark haired, vivid young man sat cross legged on the muddy, bare ground at the foot of the archway, his back leaning against the damp purple-ish bricks.

"What does it look like?" John asked, defensively. One arm was still wrapped around the girl beside him. The man seated in front of them glanced at his watch, frowning.

"You need to go before it gets dark." He stated, haughtily. "And she's not right."

The girl snorted indignantly at this and made a move to steer her boyfriend away, but he held his ground.

"What do you mean _we_ need to go. What are you doing here that's so important?" He paused as the second half of the other's sentence sunk in, "What do you mean 'not right.'?"

"It's not right. It won't last three days." He stated, uninterestedly before returning his attention to the notepad in his lap.

John, at a loss for a retort, allowed himself to be dragged back outside, through the small patch of urban wasteland that bordered the canal and back up the wrought iron steps to the real world.

XXXXX

Later, when it was dark, the wasteland was inhabited again; shadowy figures immersed in the blackness pair off into the night. Sherlock watched and drew; not the people but the feeling of being there, of living, the snapshots of a dozen lives revolving anonymously around each other. Like John, Sherlock was no more than a spectator, an intruder, but he knew that the moment was hardly clean enough for him to tarnish it by his presence.

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><p>By the way, this story is based on a series of unrelated prompts that i asked him to give me. Prompts included in this chapter are: actually i haven't included any yet... nevermind, next one up shortly x<p> 


	2. Second

Written for my twin, because its our birthday tomorrow. I hope you enjoy, most of the chapters are written now, just waiting to be proofread.

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><p>2.<p>

John Made his way down the narrow metal steps, the surface dark and slippery with the morning's warm rain. He could smell the turgid dampness of the canal, its water brown and filthy without the distraction of its previous cloak of sunlight. John liked it, it suited his mood.

It was the drabness of the place that had attracted him to it, combined with the danger of the unfamiliar, the unoccupied. It presented a kind of urban romanticism that was grey and brown and damp; a contrast from his tidy high end student flat or his parents' well-kept, four bedroom semi-detached, but deep down he knew he was only a tourist.

Time slowed down as he made his way towards the edge of the canal and the water moved along sluggishly. Sarah had been right, he decided. He shouldn't have taken her here, regardless of the strange young man who had appeared. This was a place for solitude, not company, which was why he was here now.

As if on cue, the moment was broken once more by the same peculiar voice as before.

"You're back again, and- Ah! No friend this time- I see…" The latter half of the statement was triumphant and the tiniest bit smug. John turned, seeing the young man sitting in the same place as before, beneath the archway. He walked towards him, squinting into the shadows to see him more clearly.

"You see what?"

"I was right, of course." He stopped, waiting expectantly before sighing; a little overly dramatically John thought, at the shorter man's blank expression. "I told you that it would only last a further three days and indeed yesterday you found her cheating on you… From your facial expression I would assume it to be somebody close to you, a best friend perhaps? No. That's not right, you've only just moved here from Brighton and the girl that was here last night was the closest person you have. Family members then; someone of your generation close enough to visit- a brother."

"Sister actually." John said, somewhat defeated, but glad to be able to contradict at least one point. "How did you know I was from Brighton?"

"Sister… Sister… Damn it- the chance was approximately one in ten… There's sand on your trainers. It should have worn off over the past month but you haven't been wearing them; your girlfriend disliked them. It's Brighton sand; my brother lives there, it's worked quite deeply into the fibres so you must have used the beach regularly, not just a short trip."

"You're right… I used to walk the dog." John said, slightly hazily. His anger at their last meeting and the dark haired man's rudeness had by now been almost entirely replaced by confusion. "How do you do that?"

"What?" The dark haired man frowned.

"Just know things like that?"

"I don't just know… I observe." He sounded slightly put out by the question.

"John Watson by the way, although I'm sure you knew already."

"It seemed most probable." John sat down beside him, uninvited; he suspected that the stranger was unlikely to oblige an invitation and it was uncomfortable having to look down at him.

"So what should I call you?"

"Sherlock Holmes."

XXXXX

As always, at night fall, the scene became filled with the hidden rustlings of more underground encounters. The danger and the secrecy of it appealed to Sherlock's hunger for risk taking, but he simply observes the atmosphere of it. That night he drew a blade of grass hidden in the blackness of night-time. He etched each microscopic differentiation from its surrounding brothers perfectly into his mind, knowing all along that when dawn comes and he can see again the page will be nothing but a mess of piled graphite.

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><p>Prompts included in this chapter are: Brighton<p> 


	3. Third

Written for my twin, because its our birthday tomorrow. I hope you enjoy, most of the chapters are written now, just waiting to be proofread.

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><p>3.<p>

It was raining heavily in town and John, on his way towards the flat he shared, found himself detouring slightly again towards the shelter of the old railway bridge. He had nothing better to do he reasoned, although it did strike him as odd to be making his way through the rain without a hood on the off chance of another bizarre meeting with the strange young man under the bridge.

He wasn't disappointed. Sherlock was there as he had hoped; crouched over something in the grass, scribbling intently in the ruffled A3 wad of paper that he had had with him the other two times, seemingly oblivious to the downpour. John wondered how much time he spent there; it couldn't just be coincidence that they happened to both be in the same place at the same time three times already unless Sherlock was pretty much a permanent fixture.

"Hello" John called, shuffling through the wet grass until he reached the shelter of the arch. He was sure the other man had noticed him already and was ignoring him, but he had called anyway. If Sherlock were anyone else his coldness would have been offensive but John was beginning to make exceptions for the odd behaviour.

"Back soon." came the vague reply from where Sherlock crouched. John wasn't certain where he was coming back from, but he could see that wherever Sherlock's mind was at that moment it was clearly not within reach of ordinary people like himself.

A few frantic scribbles later and the dark haired man sprung up again, dark curls dripping wet and flouncing around his face and a grin spreading across it. "Hello" he called across to where john was standing near the foot of the steps. "I thought you might come."

It was the first time that John had seen him stand upright, and he was struck by the unexpected height of the man. Sherlock was a good head or so taller than him, his long arms and legs gangly yet somehow elegant as he strode towards the arch.

"What were you doing?" John asked, glancing curiously at the closed notepad as Sherlock reached the shelter and stood dripping onto the ground in front of him.

"Studying the rate of decomposition in deceased rana temporaria" Sherlock replied enthusiastically, locating the page he had just been using and thrusting it towards John who took it, a little surprised.

"You were watching a dead frog rot?" he asked, before glancing down at the page in front of him. Indeed the page documented the decay of what seemed to have at an earlier point in its existence been a frog. What it was now, today's diagram depicted in such a lifelike, detailed manner that John was in equal parts in awe and slightly nauseous, was more of a mess of sludge, bones and taught shrunken skin.

Each diagram the page in front of him was completed to the same immaculate quality and dated in thin, cramped handwriting. Occasionally Sherlock had scribbled some point of interest alongside; "April 11th. Exhibits some signs of bloating. Possibly caused by bacterial aerobic gas exchange post mortem."

"The drawings are beautiful Sherlock, but... _why_?"

"I thought it might be useful." Sherlock said doubtfully, "You don't like it?"

"I do- I mean I… What on earth would it be useful for?"

"It could be." Sherlock replied defensively, and John realised that he had in some way offended him.

"The drawings are bloody amazing though, do you study art?" He asked, realising that he had no clue whether the dark haired boy studied anything, or even ever left the shadow of the railway bridge.

"No, no I don't…" was the response, but as evasive as the answer was Sherlock seemed pleased.

"What do you do then?"

"I write."

"Write what?"

"Crime fiction. Murders, detective novels. I like to keep an active knowledge of forensic pathology you see." He said, gesturing to the dead frog sketches again. "Sometimes the police let me into the morgue at the hospital so I can have a look around. My brother has connections…"

"You must be pretty young to be an author", John said, passing the book back to him. The image of Sherlock with an actual job didn't seem to fit; John could just about picture him as some sort of eccentric chemist but fiction writer didn't work at all, "Have you got anything published, would I have read anything?"

"Not as such, not yet…" He grinned, sheepishly.

John stayed until it was late that time, sitting under the archway with Sherlock until it was almost dark for no reason other than that he didn't need one.

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><p>Prompts included in this chapter are: Sketchbook (sort of; it's a notepad with Sketches in so it will do)<p> 


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